Of course we care about understanding things, that's why we are atheists. We care about knowledege, and the demonstrable proof of that knowledge. Scientific reasoning adjusts it's views based on what is observed, and the scientific method (while never perfect) will change with time depending on the knowledge we accumulate. Faith is the denial of observation so that the beliefs of men many, many years ago can be preserved, and thus is the antithesis of what we believe in.

It's not simply a case of saying we don't care about understanding. We just have a different way of understanding than you. I, personally, am of the belief that I cannot and will not force anybody what they must believe, but everyone should have the ability and option to make their own choice from the options laid out in front of them. For me, there is no other option than to believe that organised religion is a worn out method of social control, that a belief in a god is misguided, and that there is no reason other than fear to believe in any version of an afterlife. You may believe that I'm going to hell when I die. Chances are, we'll never agree, but I'm always interested to hear other viewpoints.

It's taken me most of my adult life to come to these conclusions. I've gathered material from many sources, theist and atheist. It saddens me that many theists merely accept what they are told when young, and follow their allocated religions blindly. If you're going to be religious, you must follow the strength of your convictions and argue your case rationally, but it is unscientific and foolish to accept one source as truth and ignore all others, especially if that source is two thousand years old. Are we to ignore the knowledge gained by humanity in the Rennaisance? The Enlightenment? The Industrial Revolution? And the entire modern era? To deny that is to deny our very humanity, and that way madness lies.

Thank you for having the courage to post on what may seem an intimidating site to you. I hope that you can look around, and take something from the information and discussions on here. Whether or not you decide that atheism is worth looking at, enjoy your stay.

Everyone, I apologize for not responding for a long period of time. I have very limited access to the internet currently, so I've been having trouble finding the time to get on. I may not even get much done this time around, so again I apologize.

(30-12-2010 02:41 PM)Godless Wrote: Why don't I beleive in god? I'm going to assume for the sake of argument that we are talking about the Christian god and not just the general concept.

1. There is no valid historical evidence earlier then 1100 AD or so for Christ's existence being recorded. You would suspect that a man walking around defying the laws of nature would have been worthy of recording during his own lifetime.

2. There are many things in the bible that don't line up with common knowledge such as the earth taking 3 days to create but all the sun and the stars taking but one day. With what we know now about the immense nature of our universe claims such as this show the 1st century primitive nature of the bible.

3. I found god's solution to "sin" (a problem of his own making) philosophically nonsensical. To kill a part of yourself knowing full well it will rise after 3 days and go on to live peacefully for eternity is not a sacrifice on the same scale as the crimes of humanity. In fact it's not really a sacrifice since the status quo for Jesus well being is not only restored but improved.

4. 900 year old people at multiple points in the bible thousands and thousands of years into the past. Not only is this not possible but if this is a result of holiness why does this not occur today with people like the pope or bishops? Because it never happened in the first place.

5. Jesus created the idea of eternal punishment or reward for finite lifetimes. Giving out eternal conditions for finite crimes is highly missing the mark.

I could go on for a few hundred of these if you like and these are nowhere near the 5 strongest arguments I have that made me change my mind but you get the idea.

Yes, I was referring mostly to the Christian God, but also the general concept. For argument's sake I agree with your assumption.

1. citation? Also, there are many texts about the Christian church and about Jesus life between the time he lived and 1100 AD. In fact AD itself in Latin is Anno Domini which actually means "the year of our Lord". Anyways, this site has a good list of historical documents:http://www.iclnet.org/pub/resources/chri...story.html

2. God can create however He wants. He could have chosen to create everything instantly. If He chose to take longer creating the Earth than the sun and stars, then whatever. I personally think He did it that way because we see the things on Earth every day and thus God chose to bring focus to things we're familiar with by taking more time to create them. We learn about how He chose to create things in six days and rested on the seventh. Thus the seven day week.

3. The punishment for sin is death. Death entered the world through one man (Adam). Jesus was without sin and thus did not deserve to die. Jesus died without deserving it thus taking the punishment everyone else deserves for them. Death exited the world through one man (Jesus). Jesus, having taken the punishment for sin and not deserving death was then raised from the grave as proof of his authority over death. Makes sense to me.

4. It's not a result of holiness, but rather a result of the superior state of the earth at the time as well as the superior state of health and the human genome. Things have devolved since the time of Adam and Eve and thus we live shorter lives.

5. Whoever is faithful with little will be faithful with much. Read Luke 16:1-13 (link below). Same idea applies in other areas of life. If you loan someone a pencil and they make a point to give it back, then you can probably trust them with borrowing a video game and so on. If you don't use what you have in this life to do what good you can, what good are you going to do in eternity?http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?sea...ersion=NIV

I have no problem going more in depth, but for the sake of keeping this from becoming a book I recommend sticking to what we have going for now. Although if you do wish to go to different things I also have no problem with that. I'm not your papa, so do whatever.

BlackEyedGhost. - I do not agree with any of your answers, at all. I have heard very similar things by many christians. I have seen and been involved in demonstrating the faults of arguements like that many times. You come along and present arguements that have been brought to this forum by other believers. They were not able to convince us because their arguements were flawed and they had absolutely no evidence to support their claims. None of them learned anything from us. Are we going to go through this again?

When I find myself in times of trouble, Richard Dawkins comes to me, speaking words of reason, now I see, now I see.

(15-01-2011 03:12 AM)BlackEyedGhost Wrote: 4. It's not a result of holiness, but rather a result of the superior state of the earth at the time as well as the superior state of health and the human genome. Things have devolved since the time of Adam and Eve and thus we live shorter lives.

So you believe in Devolution, but not evolution? Do you have any evidence that suggests humans used to be able to live for several hundred years? And how come the physical evidence points towards humans not living past their 30's back then?

None of the documents on that site actually contain evidence of Jesus' existence. There are a few documents which make reference to a man whom several people refer to as "Christus", but this does not prove that the Bible's account of his life is accurate. There is a big difference between showing that a man referred to as Christ existed and showing that the Biblical Jesus existed.

Quote:2. God can create however He wants.

This doesn't change the fact that the Biblical accounts often contradict our knowledge of the universe. If you claim that it doesn't matter that they do, on account of God being a level twenty-seven wizard, you have to prove that God is a level twenty-seven wizard. You can't just claim that God did it so that it looks exactly like he didn't. That's circular logic.

Quote:4. It's not a result of holiness, but rather a result of the superior state of the earth at the time as well as the superior state of health and the human genome. Things have devolved since the time of Adam and Eve and thus we live shorter lives.

This is complete and utter bullshit.

I'm sorry, but it is. You can say it all you want, but it is nonsense. It's the same claim put forth by Kent Hovind in his idiotic speeches. It was stupid when he said it, and it hasn't gotten any less so during any of the time that it's been parroted by his followers.

If you want this claim to hold any water, you have to prove that the Earth was vastly different in the past and that the state that it was in was conducive to thousand-year lifespans in humans. Until then, don't say it again, because it only makes you look foolish.

"Owl," said Rabbit shortly, "you and I have brains. The others have fluff. If there is any thinking to be done in this Forest - and when I say thinking I mean thinking - you and I must do it." - A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner

well I think Unbeliever nailed it before I even got started. The only thing I would add is that the idea of an address towards your idea of a "superior genome" devolving.

You understand that throughout all of recorded human history our lives have gotten substantially as medical science improves. The curve starts at the bottom and climbs not the other way around. Thus that theory is totally bogus and you know it.

Stop with trying to find any means of justifying a belief and let's have some honesty. Try thinking about your reasoning before you make claims.

I am new to forums in general, so I apologize for not quoting Ghost's posts properly.

First of all, "bashing" is a weapon used when there is no other mechanism of defense in a discussion. You've seen that the atheists on this page are nice people willing to have a coherent discussion with you. However, there are many mean atheists that will mistreat you, and there are many Theists that will mistreat us too. It applies both ways.

"However, Christianity is not a blind faith. It is the only religion that can prove itself, and a main source of that proof is the Bible."

Strike one. Using the Bible to prove Christianity is true is like using Harry Potter to prove magic is true.

"The Old Testament was written between approximately 1450 BC and 430 BC. "

Strike two. This is the thing with most Christians, they're given the facts they consider true but don't analyze beyond the surface. Society was very primitive back then, and just how primitive it was is portrayed beautifully in the O.T. It teaches murder, rape, slavery, pillage, taking of women, punishment, sacrifice, and so on. Whatever was written in that time simply describes how savage life was back then. I don't know if there are any carbon dated manuscripts that actually prove the time of their writing, either. Too many things are wrong with that statement.

"a boy named Jesus was born to a virgin named Mary. "

Strike three. If a man ejaculated on a woman's vagina and the sperm swam up, she would be pregnant like any other normal woman. No supernatural actions, only nature in action.

Three strikes and the page is discarded.

You say god is almighty, and that "he could've created everything at the same time", but science proves your belief wrong. Having every single living specie in the planet alive at the same time is simply impossible.

"I've usually considered that the stars (including the sun) existed when God said "Let there be light" and it wasn't until the 4th day when they could actually be seen clearly from Earth."

Again, like every Christian, you resort to interpreting some things YOUR way, and other things literally. If the Bible were true, then EVERYTHING on it would be taken literally. And please explain what you mean by "seen clearly from Earth".

As for Christian beliefs in general, they're senseless: there is an almighty god in heaven that loves every human being on this Earth, but if we don't worship him, we'll be sent to hell. Oh, and he sent his son to Earth to die for our sins, his only beloved son who never sinned, and then came back from the dead. He also wrote this book that is the absolute truth and we must believe it because he told us IN THAT BOOK that it is the truth, and that everything else is bullshit. Did I mention he's almighty, and yet there's a bad guy tempting us? That's like saying I love a bunch of kids and letting a rottweiler lose in their backyard, just so they learn that "dogs are bad and I don't want you near them". It's stupid.

There are hundreds of gods, but he is the only real one.

"He" may be Allah, Jesus Christ, Ra, Zeus, Odin, Rama.....Etc.

The "scientific" evidence presented by many Christian "teachers" is crap. Back when the Bible was written everything was a mystery, so people simply attributed things they couldn't explain to the supernatural (hell, we believed that mice were "born" from nasty clothes) and now every "mystery" attributed to god is being cleared up. We thought the female period was a "divine punishment", but now we now the REAL reason women have periods. Christianity knows it's a dying faith so, as before, it's making up explanations for the scientific truths out of the blue. One day, Christianity will be considered a myth, just like every other religion.

As for why I'm an atheist....it's more than clear. I focus on my real-life problems and try to enjoy my life as much as I can, and instead of going to church on Sundays or doing something religious, I like to read, hang on with real friends, occasionally volunteer, etc. My daily activities are focused on making my life and others' easier, not worshiping an invisible flying man that loves me. It must be nice to believe there's someone out there that loves me no matter what and wants the best for me all the time. Nice, but not logical. Religion is merely an extremely efficient manipulation method used by those with superior minds to handle the masses, in a few short words, Christianity is all about fear.

If you want to use the Quote function, hit the "Reply" button on the bottom-right of the post. You can then put [ quote ] and [ /quote ] tags, minus the spaces, in there as necessary to break up the text.

"Owl," said Rabbit shortly, "you and I have brains. The others have fluff. If there is any thinking to be done in this Forest - and when I say thinking I mean thinking - you and I must do it." - A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner